1. Field of the Invention
The invention is directed to the treatment of the waste gas of internal combustion engines, and in particular to method and apparatus for integrated control as to the time, amount and quality of the explosion in the engine and an afterburner.
2. Prior Art
The piston engine as power engine has the purpose to transform thermal energy into mechanical work. In the reciprocating piston engine this is accomplished by connecting the piston stroke to a crank gear and in the rotary piston system of the Wankel engine--which operates with a four-stroke Otto engine gas exchange--by integration of the piston drive. In scientific studies, both systems are subject to the criterion that their effectiveness be sufficient, and each study of the working process of these engines differentiates between their theoretically perfect execution and that which can be technically achieved.
The internal combustion engines, executed as piston engines, work in the manner of internal combustion engines according to a thermal interval technique. Regardless if their gas exchange process is planned in a four-cycle or two-cycle structure, there is as a rule first a self-priming and compressing filling process with a fuel/air mixture, followed by spark or self-ignition and then an explosive evacuation process with expulsion of the waste gas through a valve (four-cycle Otto engine with reciprocating piston) or slit (two-cycle reciprocating piston engine and Wankel engine) into the open atmosphere. With the waste gas expulsion at the engine exhaust, the discontinuous process of this type of internal combustion engine is completed, and any waste gas installation--which mainly serve for muffling or a thermal waste gas treatment--attempt to complete their task by trying to convert the discontinuous process into a continuous process. By their smoothing of the procedure they affect the conversion of the pulse characteristic into the continuity of a flow process from the engine exhaust. It is especially true that so far even thermal reactors see in this method of converting the discontinuous gas exchange, the possibility to get rid of waste gas pullutants by afterburning, while they attempt to approach as much as possible the flow technique which has the developed combustion technique (from the Bunsen burner to the modern fan burner) with its control system of a burner feed that is as regular as possible.